Teaching

Job

Tutelages

Team 09: Epithelial Growth and Morphogenesis

We are interested in the functional interactions occurring between proteins controlling cell shape (morphogenesis) and cell size (growth). Indeed, it is relatively obvious that tissue or organ development requires coordination of morphogenesis and growth. It is easy to study this coordination on epithelium because of the simple and stereotyped shape of epithelial cells. Thus, any size or shape defect can be easily detected and can be even quantified. Beside these basics questions, most of cancers arise from epithelial tissues and misregulation of the mechanisms controlling their growth and morphogenesis (and especially apical-basal polarity) are both involved in tumor development. It is therefore relevant for cancer biology to study interactions between these mechanisms, and, indeed, several of the genes that we study are tumor suppressors or oncogenes in human.

Research

We use the follicular cells of the Drosophila ovary as a model of epithelium. On top of all the genetics tools and cell imaging possibilities available in fly, the follicular epithelium owns a morphology highly reminiscent of mammal epithelia and its growth is easily controllable by nutrient intake. Thus, it is an excellent model to address the questions regarding the coordination of growth and shape during development.